302,645 concurrent players on Steam over launch weekend. $325 million in gross revenue in seven days. 4.9 million copies sold. The #1 spot on Steam’s Top Sellers chart.

And the most-voted negative review on the store page — from a player with 34 hours logged — calls Forza Horizon 6 “a Wooden simulator” with “0 physics,” “invisible collisions,” and “bugs that are already 8 years old.”

Both things are true. That’s the problem.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Playground Games’ open-world racer is a commercial force the racing genre has rarely seen. Its 273,148 concurrent Steam players on launch day narrowly beat Halo Infinite to become the most-played Xbox Game Studios title ever on the platform, per SteamDB data reported by Gamereactor. The weekend peak of 302,645 represents a 273% jump over Forza Horizon 5’s all-time Steam high of 81,096.

Alinea Analytics estimates 2.8 million copies sold on Steam, 2.1 million on Xbox, and over 3 million additional players through Game Pass — pushing Microsoft’s total to “over 6 million players.” China accounts for 13% of the Steam player base, drawn by the Japan setting. A PS5 port confirmed for later this year adds further upside, given that Forza Horizon 5 sold 6 million copies on PlayStation alone after its own port. Even now, two weeks post-launch, 187,030 concurrent players remain on Steam — still climbing at 9% week-over-week.

Critics matched the enthusiasm. The game sits at 92 on Metacritic — the highest-rated new release of 2026 so far. IGN awarded a 10/10, calling it “the new standard in open-world racing games.” Eurogamer matched the perfect score. Game Informer landed at 9.25.

Same Score, Different Year

Here’s the catch. Forza Horizon 4 scored 92 on Metacritic. So did Forza Horizon 5. Forza Horizon 3 landed at 91. Four consecutive games, four years apart, separated by a single aggregate point.

Polygon’s review roundup put it plainly: “it’s more or less the same game with new aesthetic flavoring.” Gamespot’s Mark Delaney, in an 8/10 review, wrote that the franchise’s signature Showcase events “didn’t do as much to dazzle me as they did a decade ago… the way it unfolds was all too familiar.”

For millions of players — newcomers, casual fans, people who just want to slide a Lamborghini through neon-lit Japanese streets — that familiarity is a selling point. The formula works. Japan looks spectacular. There are over 550 cars. The on-ramp is gentle and the skill ceiling is high enough to reward commitment.

For the players who’ve been here since Horizon 3, the formula is calcifying.

“Bugs That Are Already 8 Years Old”

The Steam review section tells a story the aggregate score smooths over. An 87% Very Positive rating from 27,800 reviews is strong. But those 3,663 negative reviews cluster around specific, repeat grievances.

The top-voted negative review describes physics that feel like a downgrade, invisible collisions that ruin races, campaign progression that forces rental cars you can’t modify, and online matchmaking that throws new players against veterans who’ve already completed the story. Another player with 27.6 hours reports the game breaking entirely after a patch.

These aren’t drive-by complaints from people who played for twenty minutes. The hours invested suggest players who wanted to love the game — and kept grinding despite the friction, until they couldn’t anymore.

Playground Games has already shipped multiple hotfixes. Series 1 Hotfix 1, deployed May 18, addressed profile loading errors, crashes tied to Steam Controller usage, and multiplayer invite bugs. Hotfix 2 followed with PC audio optimizations and a fix for a progression-blocking bug in the Collection Journal. The studio is responsive. But when negative reviews cite issues persisting across multiple franchise entries, hotfixes start to look like symptom management.

The $325 Million Question

The money doesn’t care about any of this. Alinea analyst Rhys Elliott described Game Pass as “cannibalising” revenue — over 3 million players accessed FH6 through subscription rather than purchase. But $325 million in a single week, with 1.7 million players paying $120 for Premium Edition early access, suggests a franchise at peak earning power regardless. Steam outsold Xbox platforms 2.8 million to 2.1 million paid copies — a striking split for a Microsoft first-party title.

Perfected or Stagnated?

Forza Horizon 6 is the best arcade racing game on the market, and it isn’t close. The numbers confirm what’s obvious within an hour of play: Playground Games executes this formula at a level nobody else matches.

But “best on the market” and “better than last time” are different standards. The physics complaints, the familiar campaign structure, the bugs that migrate between entries — these are the costs of a development cadence that prioritizes a new map and a bigger car list over fundamental iteration.

When the PS5 port lands later this year, the player base will swell further — and so will the chorus of voices asking why the physics still feel like 2018.

The 87% positive rating drowns out the noise. For now.

Sources